Protestant Admissions on the Sabbath day

Please note: Some of the admissions below may not be in support of the Scriptural Sabbath of Friday sunset through Saturday sunset, but rather of that of the first day of the week. They are included herein, in spite of this doctrinal misunderstanding, because of the admissions they contain regarding the continuance of the 4th Commandment itself.

Anglican

"For if we under the gospel are to regulate the time of our public worship by the prescriptions of the Decalogue, it will be far safer to observe the seventh day, according to the express commandment of God, than on the authority of mere human conjecture to adopt the first day of the week." (John Milton, A Posthumous Treatise on the Christian Doctrine, bk. 2, chap. 7)

"The Sabbath should then be noted as a divine institution. the first use of 'sanctify' is here [Gen 2], and we are enabled to see that the root idea is 'separation' or 'consecration.' God separated--i.e. set apart--the Sabbath to be consecrated to a special purpose.

The Sabbath should be emphasized as of permanent obligation. The institution of the Sabbath is evidently grounded in creation, and is therefore pre-Mosaic, and not at all to be limited to the Jews. It is noteworthy that the fourth Commandment calls attention to the Sabbath as an already existing fact ('Remember the Sabbath day.' Exod. xx. 8). There are many indications, both in Genesis and in Babylonian records, that the Sabbath was part of the primeval revelation which received fresh sanction under Moses...The Sabbath should be carefully understood as to its essential elements. God's rest after creation is put forth as the reason and model of man's weekly rest. It involves the special consecration to God of a portion of our time. While it affords physical rest and recreation of energies, it also calls for worship of God...The law of God and the needs of man combine to make the observance of the Sabbath an absolute necessity." [.H. Griffith Thomas, Genesis: A Devotional Commentary, p. 38, section I. The Sabbath for Man (vers. 1-3)--Genesis 2]

"And where are we told in the Scriptures that we are to keep the first day at all? We are commanded to keep the seventh; but we are nowhere commanded to keep the first day....The reason why we keep the first day of the week holy instead of the seventh is for the same reason that we observe many other things, not because the Bible, but because the church has enjoined it."
(Isaac Williams, Plain Sermons on the Catechism, vol. 1, pp.334, 336.)

"There is no word, no hint, in the New Testament about abstaining from work on Sunday....Into the rest of Sunday no divine law enters....The observance of Ash Wednesday or Lent stands exactly on the same footing as the observance of Sunday." (Canon Eyton, The Ten Commandments, pp. 52, 63, 65.)

“In Rev. i. 9 we are told that John saw and received this revelation on "the Lord's Day." Leaving the former part of this verse for the present, let us notice the latter expression, "the Lord's Day." *[For further information on this subject see a separate pamphlet on The Lord's Day, by the same author and publisher, 1907]. The majority of people, being accustomed from their infancy to hear the first day of the week called the Lord's Day, conclude in their own minds that that day is thus called in Rev. i.9 because that was the name of it. But the contrary is the fact: the day is so called by us because of this verse.

In the New Testament this day is always called "the first day of the week." (See Matt. xxviii.I. Mark xvi. 2,9. Luke xxiv. I. John xx. I,19. Acts xx.7. I Cor. xvi.2). Is it not strange that in this one place a different expression is thought to refer to the same day? And yet, so sure are the commentators that it means Sunday, that some go as far as to say it was "Easter Sunday," and it is for this reason that Rev. i. 10-19 is chosen in the New Lectionary of the Church of England as the 2nd Lesson for Easter Sunday morning.

There is no evidence of any kind that "the first day of the week" was ever called "the Lord's Day" before the Apocalypse was written. That it should be so called afterwards is easily understood, and there can be little doubt that this practice arose from the misinterpretation of these words in Rev. i. 9. It is incredible that the earliest use of a term can have a meaning which only subsequent usage makes intelligible.

On the contrary, it ceased to be called by its Scripture name ("the First day of the week"), not because of any advance of Biblical truth or reverence, but because of declension from it. The Greek "Fathers" of the Church were converts from Paganism: and it is not yet sufficiently recognized how much of Pagan rites and ceremonies and expressions they introduced into the Church; and how far Christian ritual was elaborated from and based upon Pagan ritual by the Church of Rome. Especially is this seen in the case of baptism. (*See The Buddha of Christendom, by Dr. Robert Anderson, C.B. Hodder and Stoughton, page 68 and hap. ix).

It was these Fathers who, on their conversions, brought the title "Sunday" into the Church from the Pagan terminology which they had been accustomed to use in connection with their Sun-worship.

Justin Martyr (114-165 A.D.) in his second Apology...says in chap. lxvii. on "The weekly worship of the Christians,"-"On the day called SUN-DAY all who live in the country gather together to one place....SUN-DAY is the day on which we all hold our common assembly, because it is the first day on which God, having wrought a change in the darkness and matter, made the world; and Jesus Christ our Saviour on the same day rose from the dead....".

It is passing strange that if John called the first day of the week "the Lord's Day," we find no trace of the use of such a title until a hundred years later. And that though we do find a change, it is to "Sunday," and not to "the Lord's Day"--a name which has become practically universal.” (E.W. Bullinger, Commentary on Revelation, Kregel Publications, Grand Rapids , MI, 1984)

"Not any ecclesiastical writer of the first three centuries attributed the origin of Sunday observance either to Christ or to His apostles." (Sir William Domville, Examination of the Six Texts, p. 6, 7)

"The Lord's day did not succeed in the place of the Sabbath....The Lord's day was merely an ecclesiastical institution. It was not introduced by virtue of the fourth commandment, because for almost three hundred years together they kept that day which was in that commandment....The primitive Christians did all manner of works upon the Lord's day even in times of persecution when they are the strictest observers of all the divine commandments; but in this they knew there was none." (Bishop Jeremy Taylor, Ductor Dubitantium, Part 1, Book II, Chap.2, Rule 6 Sec.51, 59)
"The Puritan idea was historically unhappy. It made Sunday into the Sabbath day. Even educated people call Sunday the Sabbath. Even clergymen do. But, unless my reckoning is all wrong, the Sabbath day lasts twenty-four hours from six o'clock on Friday evening [it actually begins at sunset and continues until the following sunset]. It gives over, therefore, before we come to Sunday. If you suggest to a [Sunday] Sabbatarian that he ought to observe the Sabbath on the proper day, you arouse no enthusiasm. He at once replies that the day, not the principle, has been changed. But changed by whom? There is no injunction in the whole of the New Testament to Christians to change the Sabbath into Sunday." (D. Morse-Boycott, Daily Herald, London, Feb. 26, 1931)
"The Christian church made no formal, but a gradual and almost unconscious transference of the one day to the other." ( F. W. Farrar, D.D., The Voice From Sinai, p.167)
"Take which you will, either of the Fathers or the moderns, and we shall find no Lord's day instituted by any apostolical mandate; no Sabbath set on foot by them upon the first day of the week." (Dr. Peter Heylyn, History of the Sabbath, p.410)
"Neither did He (Jesus), or his disciples, ordain another Sabbath in the place of this, as if they had intended only to shift the day; and to transfer this honor to some other time. Their doctrine and their practice are directly contrary, to so new a fancy. It is true, that in some tract of time, the Church in honor of his resurrection, did set apart that day on the which he rose, to holy exercises: but this upon their own authority, and without warrant from above, that we can hear of; more then the general warrant which God gave his Church, that all things in it be done decently, and in comely order." (Dr. Peter Heylyn,, History of the Sabbath, Pt 2, Ch.2, p7)
"Merely to denounce the tendency to secularize Sunday is as futile as it is easy. What we want is to find some principle, to which as Christians we can appeal, and on which we can base both our conduct and our advice. We turn to the New Testament, and we look in vain for any authoritative rule. There is no recorded word of Christ, there is no word of any of the apostles, which tells how we should keep Sunday, or indeed that we should keep it at all. It is disappointing, for it would make our task much easier if we could point to a definite rule, which left us no option but simple obedience or disobedience.... There is no rule for Sunday observance, either in Scripture or history." (Dr. Stephen, Bishop of Newcastle, N.S.W., Newcastle Morning Herald, May 14, 1924)

Baptist

"There was and is a commandment to keep holy the Sabbath day, but that Sabbath day was not Sunday. It will be said, however, and with some show of triumph, that the Sabbath was transferred from the seventh to the first day of the week, with all its duties, privileges, and sanctions. Earnestly desiring information on this subject, which I have studied for many years, I ask, Where can the record of such a transaction be found? Not in the New Testament, absolutely not. There is no Scriptural evidence of the change of the Sabbath institution from the seventh to the first day of the week.
"I wish to say that this Sabbath question, in this aspect of it, is the gravest and most perplexing question connected with Christian institutions which at present claims attention from Christian people; and the only reason that it is not a more disturbing element in Christian thought and in religious discussion is because the Christian world has settled down content on the conviction that somehow a transference has taken place at the beginning of Christian history.
"To me it seems unaccountable that Jesus, during three years' intercourse with His disciples, often conversing with them upon the Sabbath question, discussing it in some of its various aspects, freeing it from its false [Jewish traditional] glosses, never alluded to any transference of the day; also that during the forty days of His resurrection life, no such thing was intimated. Nor, so far as we know, did the Spirit, which was given to bring to their remembrance all things whatsoever that He had said unto them, deal with this question. Nor yet did the inspired apostles, in preaching the gospel, founding churches, counseling and instructing those founded, discuss or approach the subject… Of course, I quite well know that Sunday did come into use in early Christian history as a religious day, as we learn from the Christian Fathers and other sources. But what a pity that it comes branded with the mark of paganism, and christened with the name of the sun god, when adopted and sanctioned by the papal apostasy, and bequeathed as a sacred legacy to Protestantism.!" (Dr. Edward T. Hiscox, author of The Baptist Manual, in a paper read before a New York ministers' conference, Nov. 13, 1893, reported in New York Examiner, Nov.16, 1893.)

"There was never any formal or authoritative change from the Jewish seventh-day Sabbath to the Christian first-day observance." (William Owen Carver, The Lord's Day in Our Day, p. 49.)

"The Scriptures nowhere call the first day of the week the Sabbath...There is no Scriptural authority for so doing, nor of course, any Scriptural obligation." (The Watchman)

"We believe that the law of God is the eternal and unchangeable rule of His moral government." (Baptist Church Manual, Art. 12)

“To prove that the ten commandments are binding, let any person read them one by one, and ask his own conscience as he reads, whether it would be a sin to break them. Is this, or any part of it, the liberty of the gospel? …Thus it is, by disowning the law, men utterly subvert the gospel. Believers, therefore, instead of being freed from the obligation to obey it, are under a greater obligation to do so than any men in the world. To be exempt from this is to be without law, and of course without sin, in which case we might do without a saviour, which is utterly subversive to all religion.” (Baptist Publication Society, Tract 64, pp.2-6)

"There's nothing in Scripture that requires us to keep Sunday rather than Saturday as a holy day." (Harold Lindsell, editor, Christianity Today, Nov. 5, 1976)

Christian

“We are in manner as superstitious in Sunday as they [the Jews] were in the Saturday, yea, we are much madder. For the Jews have the Word of God for their Saturday, since it is the seventh day, and they were commanded to keep the seventh day solemn; and we have not the Word of God for us, but rather against us, for we keep not the seventh day as the Jews do, but the first, which is not commanded by God's Law." (Don Sanford, A Choosing People: The History of the Seventh Day Baptists, p.22, quoting Bible translator William Tyndale’s associate, John Fryth; see also Declaration of Baptism, p. 96.)

Congregationalist

"…it is quite clear that however rigidly or devotedly we may spend Sunday, we are not keeping the Sabbath — …'The Sabbath was founded on a specific Divine command. We can plead no such command for the obligation to observe Sunday…There is not a single sentence in the New Testament to suggest that we incur any penalty by violating the supposed sanctity of Sunday." (Dr. R. W. Dale, The Ten Commandments, New York: Eaton &Mains, p. 127-129)

"…the Christian Sabbath [Sunday] is not in the Scriptures, and was not by the primitive Church called the Sabbath." (Timothy Dwight, Theology: Explained and Defended, 1823, Ser. 107, vol. 3, p. 258.)

"Much has been made of the attitude of Christ in speech and deed toward the Sabbath. Some have imagined that the words He uttered and by deeds He did He relaxed the binding nature of the old command. This view, however, is to absolutely misunderstand and misinterpret the doing and the teaching of Jesus." (G. Campbell Morgan, The Ten Commandments, p.50. New York: Fleming H. Revell)

"The current notion that Christ and His apostles authoritatively substituted the first day for the seventh, is absolutely without any authority in the New Testament." (Dr. Layman Abbot, in the Christian Union, June 26, 1890)—American Congregationalist

"It must be confessed that there is no law in the New Testament concerning the first day." (Buck's Theological Dictionary, p.403)

"A further argument for the perpetuity of the Sabbath we have in Matthew 24:20, 'Pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the Sabbath day.' Christ is here speaking of the flight of the apostles and other Christians out of Jerusalem and Judea, just before their final destruction, as is manifest by the whole context, and especially by the 16th verse: 'Then let them which be in Judea flee into the mountains.' But the final destruction of Jerusalem was after the dissolution of the Jewish constitution, and after the Christian dispensation was fully set up. Yet it is plainly implied in these words of the Lord, that even then Christians were bound to a strict observance of the Sabbath." (The Works of President Edwards, reprint of Worcester ed., 1844-1848, vol. IV, pp. 621-622)

"There is no command in the Bible requiring us to observe the first day of the week as the Christian Sabbath." (Orin Fowler, A. M., Mode and Subjects of Baptism)

Disciples of Christ / Church of Christ

"I do not believe that the Lord's day came in the room of the Jewish Sabbath, or that the Sabbath was changed from the seventh to the first day, for this plain reason, that where there is no testimony, there can be no faith. Now there is no testimony in all the oracles of heaven that the Sabbath was changed, or that the Lord's day came in the room of it…There is no divine testimony that the Sabbath was changed, or that the Lord's day came in the room of it; therefore there can be no divine faith that the Sabbath was changed or that the Lord's day came in the room of it." [Alexander Campbell (under the pen name, Candidus), in Washington (Pa.) Reporter, Oct. 8, 1921]

"If it [Sabbath] yet exists, let us observe it…And if it does not exist, let us abandon a mock observance of another day for it. 'But,' say some, 'it was changed from the seventh to the first day.' Where? when? and by whom? No man can tell. No, it never was changed, nor could it be, unless creation was to be gone through again: for the reason assigned must be changed before the observance, or respect to the reason, can be changed! It is all old wives' fables to talk of the change of the Sabbath from the seventh to the first day. If it be changed, it was that august personage changed it who changes times and laws ex officio - I think his name is Doctor Antichrist.' (Alexander Campbell, The Christian Baptist, Feb. 2, 1824, vol. 1. no. 7, p. 164.)

"The first day of the week is commonly called the Sabbath. This is a mistake. The Sabbath of the Bible was the day just preceding the first day of the week. The first day of the week is never called the Sabbath anywhere in the entire Scriptures. It is also an error to talk about the change of the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday. There is not in any place in the Bible any intimation of such a change." (First Day Observance, pp. 17, 19.)

"There is no direct Scriptural authority for designating the first day 'the Lord's day'" (Dr D. H. Lucas, Christian Oracle, January, 1890)

"Sunday-keeping could not have been a part of the new covenant, because when Jesus died, He sealed His will or testament. Nothing could have been added to it afterward. Before He died, He had given the plan of salvation. He had commanded the ordinance of baptism and had instituted the Lord's Supper. He had kept the Sabbath holy and, by His example and instruction, had showed how to keep it. He had not taught or inferred that another day was to be substituted. The inserting of a clause in a will after the testator has died is a criminal act and is punishable by law. Thus it was not possible for any of the disciples by themselves to add Sunday-keeping to the will of Christ after He had sealed it with His own blood." (Roy B. Thurman, The Sabbath Today, p. 69)

"Finally, we have the testimony of Christ on this subject. In Mark 2:27, he says: 'The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.' From this passage it is evident that the Sabbath was made not merely for the Israelites, as Paley and Hengstenberg would have us believe, but for man...that is, for the race. Hence we conclude that the Sabbath was sanctified from the beginning, and that it was given to Adam, even in Eden, as one of those primeval institutions that God ordained for the happiness of all men." [Robert Milligan, Scheme of Redemption, (St. Louis, The Fethany Press, 1962), p.165]

Episcopalian

"The day is now changed from the seventh to the first day…but as we meet with no Scriptural direction for the change, we may conclude it was done by the authority of the church…" (Explanation of Catechism)

“Is there any command in the New Testament to change the day of the weekly rest from Saturday to Sunday? None.” (Manual of Christian Doctrine, p.127)

“The Bible commandment says on the seventh day thou shalt rest. That is Saturday. Nowhere in the Bible is it laid down that worship should be done on Sunday.” (Philip Carrington, Toronto Daily Star, October 26, 1949)

"The Sabbath was religiously observed in the Eastern church three hundred years and more after our Saviour's Passion." (Prof. E. Brerewood of Gresham College, London in a sermon)

“We have made the change from the seventh day to the first day, from Saturday to Sunday, on the authority of the one holy Catholic Church." (Bishop Seymour, Why We Keep Sunday.)

Irish Protestant Assembly

"The Great Teacher never intimated that the Sabbath was a ceremonial ordinance to cease with the Mosaic ritual. It was instituted when our first parents were in Paradise; and the precept enjoining its remembrance, being a portion of the Decalogue, is of perpetual obligation. Hence, instead of regarding it as a merely Jewish institution, Christ declares that it was made for MAN.' or, in other words, that it was designed for the benefit of the whole human family. Instead of anticipating its extinction along with the ceremonial law, He speaks of its existence after the downfall of Jerusalem [in A.D. 70, 39 years after the crucifixion]. When He announces the calamities connected with the ruin of the holy city, He instructs His followers to pray that the urgency of the catastrophe may not deprive them of the comfort of the Sabbath rest. "Pray ye,' said He, "that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the Sabbath-day.' Matt. 24.201" (William Dool Killen, The Ancient Church, pp. 188-189)

Lutheran

"We have seen how gradually the impression of the Jewish Sabbath faded from the mind of the Christian Church, and how completely the newer thought underlying the observance of the first day took possession of the church. We have seen that the Christians of the first three centuries never confused one with the other, but for a time celebrated both." (The Sunday Problem, a study book of the United Lutheran Church (1923), p. 36.)

"They [Roman Catholics] refer to the Sabbath Day, as having been changed into the Lord's Day, contrary to the Decalogue, as it seems. Neither is there any example whereof they make more than concerning the changing of the Sabbath Day. Great, say they, is the power of the Church, since it has dispensed with one of the Ten Commandments!" (Augsburg Confession of Faith art. 28; written by Melanchthon, approved by Martin Luther, 1530; as published in The Book of Concord of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, Henry Jacobs, ed. 1911, p. 63)

“I wonder exceedingly how it came to be imputed to me that I should reject the law of the Ten Commandments…Whosoever abrogates the law must of necessity abrogate sin also.” (Martin Luther, Spiritual Antichrist, pp.71,72)

"When servants have worked six days, they should have the seventh day free. God says without distinction, 'Remember that you observe the seventh day'…Concerning Sunday it is known that men have instituted it…It is clear however, that you should celebrate the seventh day." (Andres Carlstadt [Andreas Rudolf Karlstadt], Von dem Sabbat und gebotten feyertagen [“Concerning the Sabbath and Commanded Holidays”], 1524, chap.4, pp. 23-24) [Karlstadt (1480-1541) joined Luther at Wittenberg in 1517, and later taught at Bazel from 1534 onward]

“Indeed, if Carlstadt were to write further about the Sabbath, Sunday would have to give way, and the Sabbath---that is to say, Saturday---must be kept holy.“ (Martin Luther, Against the Celestial Prophets, quoted in Life of Martin Luther in Pictures, p.147)

"Opposition to Judaism introduced the particular festival of Sunday very early, indeed, into the place of the Sabbath.... The festival of Sunday, like all other festivals, was always only a human ordinance, and it was far from the intentions of the apostles to establish a Divine command in this respect, far from them, and from the early apostolic Church, to transfer the laws of the Sabbath to Sunday. Perhaps, at the end of the second century a false application of this kind had begun to take place; for men appear by that time to have considered labouring on Sunday as a sin." (Augustus Neander, General History of the Christian Religion and Church, (Rose's translation), Vol. 1, p.186)

"But they err in teaching that Sunday has taken the place of the Old Testament Sabbath and therefore must be kept as the seventh day had to be kept by the children of Israel….These churches err in their teaching, for Scripture has in no way ordained the first day of the week in place of the Sabbath. There is simply no law in the New Testament to that effect." (John Theodore Mueller, Sabbath or Sunday, pp. 15, 16.)

"For when there could not be produced one solitary place in the Holy Scriptures which testified that either the Lord Himself or the apostles had ordained such a transfer of the Sabbath to Sunday, then it was not easy to answer the question: Who has transferred the Sabbath, and who has had the right to do it?" (George Sverdrup, A New Day)

"The taking over of Sunday by the early Christians is, to my mind, an exceedingly important symptom that the early church was directly influenced by a spirit which does not originate in the gospel, nor in the Old Testament, but in a religious system foreign to it." (Dr. H. Gunkel, Zum Religionsgesch. Verstaendnis des NT. p.76)

"God blessed the Sabbath and sanctified it to Himself. It is moreover to be remarked that God did this to no other creature. God did not sanctify to Himself the heaven, nor the earth, nor any other creature. But God did sanctify to Himself the seventh day…The Sabbath therefore has, from the beginning of the world, been set apart for the worship of God….God willed that this command concerning the Sabbath should remain. He willed that on the seventh day the word should be preached." (Martin Luther, Commentary on Genesis, Vol.1, pp.138-140)
"Hence you can see that the Sabbath was before the law of Moses came, and has existed from the beginning of the world. Especially have the devout, who have preserved the true faith, met together and called upon God on this day." (Martin Luther, Comment on Exodus 16:4, 22-30. Translated from Luther's Old Testament Commentary, in Sammtliche Schriften [Collected Writings], edited by J. G. Walch, vol. 3, cal.950.)


Methodist

"Take the matter of Sunday. There are indications in the New Testament as to how the church came to keep the first day of the week as its day of worship, but there is no passage telling Christians to keep that day, or to transfer the Jewish Sabbath to that day." (Harris Franklin Rall, Christian Advocate, July 2, 1942, p.26.)

"But, the moral law contained in the Ten Commandments, and enforced by the prophets, He [Christ] did not take away. It was not the design of His coming to revoke any part of this. This is a law which never can be broken...Every part of this law must remain in force upon all mankind, and in all ages; as not depending either on time or place, or any other circumstances liable to change, but on the nature of God and the nature of man, and their unchangeable relation to each other." [John Wesley, The Works of the Rev. John Wesley, A.M., John Emory, ed. (New York: Eaton & Mains), Sermon 25,vol. 1, p. 221.]

"The Sabbath was made for MAN; not for the Hebrews, but for all men." (E. O. Haven, Pillars of Truth, p.88)

"The reason we observe the first day instead of the seventh is based on no positive command. One will search the Scriptures in vain for authority for changing from seventh day to the first." (C.G. Chappell, Ten Rules For Living, p.61)

“In the days of very long ago the people of the world began to give names to everything, and they turned the sounds of the lips into words, so that the lips could speak a thought. In those days the people worshiped the sun because many words were made to tell of many thoughts about many things. The people became Christians and were ruled by an emperor whose name was Constantine. This emperor made Sun-day the Christian Sabbath, because of the blessing of light and heat which came from the sun. So our Sunday is a sun-day, isn’t it?” (Sunday School Advocate, December 31, 1921)

"It is true that there is no positive command for infant baptism. Nor is there any for keeping holy the first day of the week. Many believe that Christ changed the Sabbath. But, from His own words, we see that He came for no such purpose [Matt 5:17-19]. Those who believe that Jesus changed the Sabbath base it only on a supposition." (Amos Binney, Theological Compendium, 1902 edition, pp. 180-181, 171)

"There is no intimation here that the Sabbath was done away, or that its moral use superseded, by the introduction of Christianity. I have shown elsewhere that, 'Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy,' is a command of perpetual obligation." (Adam Clarke, The New Testament of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, Vol. 2, p. 524)

Dwight L. Moody

"I honestly believe that this commandment is just as binding today as it ever was. I have talked with men who have said that it has been abrogated, but they have never been able to point to any place in the Bible where God repealed it. When Christ was on earth, He did nothing to set it aside; He freed it from the traces under which the scribes and Pharisees had put it, and gave it its true place. 'The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.' It is just as practicable and as necessary for men today as it ever was—in fact, more than ever, because we live in such an intense age…The Sabbath was binding in Eden, and it has been in force ever since. This fourth commandment begins with the word 'remember,' showing that the Sabbath already existed when God wrote the law on the tables of stone at Sinai. How can men claim that this one commandment has been done away with when they will admit that the other nine are still binding?…'Sabbath' means rest, and the meaning of the word gives a hint as to the true way to observe the day. God rested after creation, and ordained the Sabbath as a rest for man…Saturday is my day of rest because I generally preach on Sunday, and I look forward to it as a boy does to a holiday. God knows what we need." (D. L. Moody, Weighed and Wanting Fleming H. Revell Co.: New York, pp. 46, 47, 48)

“We have abundant evidence both in the New Testament and in the early history of the church to prove that gradually Sunday came to be observed instead of the Jewish Sabbath, apart from any specific commandment.” (Norman C. Deck, Moody Bible Institute Monthly, November, 1936, p.138)

Mormon

(The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints)
"In this, a new dispensation, and verily the last dispensation of the fullness of times, the law of the Sabbath has been reaffirmed unto the church.... We believe that a weekly day of rest is no less truly a necessity for the physical well-being of man than for his spiritual growth; but primarily and essentially, we regard the Sabbath as divinely established, and its observance a commandment of Him who was and is and ever shall be, Lord of the Sabbath." (James E. Talmage, Articles of Faith, 25th Edition, Art. 13, Chap. 24, pp. 449, 451, 452)
"The Sabbath was to be a perpetual covenant between the Lord and the children of Israel. 'Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant' (verse 16). In verse 17 they are commanded to observe it as a sign that they remember that the Lord made heaven and earth, and rested on the seventh day.
"In these quotations from Exodus 31, and in the Decalogue the most positive and weighty reasons are given by the Lord to the fathers of the house of Israel, for keeping the Sabbath day. The obligation is evidently as binding upon the Latter-day Saints as it was upon their fathers, and they in like manner will reap the reward of obedience." (Franklin D. Richards and James A. Little, A Compendium of the Doctrines of the Gospel, p. 226)

Pentecostal

“'Why do we worship on Sunday? Doesn't the Bible teach us that Saturday should be the Lord's Day?'...Apparently we will have to seek the answer from some other source than the New Testament." (A. Womack, "Is Sunday the Lord's Day?" The Pentecostal Evangel, Aug. 9,1959, No.2361, p.3)

Presbyterian

"The Sabbath is a part of the Decalogue — the Ten Commandments. This alone forever settles the question as to the perpetuity of the institution…Until, therefore, it can be shown that the whole moral law has been repealed, the Sabbath will stand…The teaching of Christ confirms the perpetuity of the Sabbath." (T. C. Blake, D.D., Theology Condensed, pp.474, 475.)

"Sunday being the first day of which the Gentiles solemnly adored that planet and called it Sunday, partly from its influence on that day especially, and partly in respect to its divine body (as they conceived it) the Christians thought fit to keep the same day and the same name of it, that they might not appear carelessly peevish, and by that means hinder the conversion of the Gentiles, and bring a greater prejudice that might be otherwise taken against the gospel" (T.M. Morer, Dialogues on the Lord's Day)

"The moral law doth for ever bind all, as well justified persons as others, to the obedience thereof, and that not only in regard of the matter contained in it, but also in respect of the authority of God the Creator who gave it. Neither doth Christ in the gospel any way dissolve, but much strengthen, this obligation." (The Constitution of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A.)

"For the permanency of the Sabbath, however, we might argue its place in the decalogue, where it stands enshrined on a tablet that is immutable and everlasting." (Dr. Thomas Chalmers, Sermons, vol. 1, pp. 51-52)

"God instituted the Sabbath at the creation of man, setting apart the seventh day for the purpose, and imposed its observance as a universal and perpetual moral obligation upon the race." (Dr. Archibald Hodge, American Presbyterian Board of Publication, Tract No. 175, pp.3-4)

Reformed Presbyterian

“Every intelligent person knows that Sunday is of Pagan origin and of idolatrous import, coming down to us through Popery and Prelacy, associated with Christmas, Easter and other idolatrous and superstitious ceremonies of antichristian origin.” (David Steele, Sabbath, or Sunday, 1882)

Southern Baptist

"The sacred name of the seventh day is Sabbath. This fact is too clear to require argument [Exodus 20:10 quoted]... On this point the plain teaching of the Word has been admitted in all ages... Not once did the disciples apply the Sabbath law to the first day of the week - that folly was left for a later age, nor did they pretend that the first day supplanted the seventh."
(Joseph Judson Taylor, The Sabbath Question, pp. 14-17, 41)

“The first four commandments set forth man’s obligations directly toward God…But when we keep the first four commandments, we are likely to keep the other six…The fourth commandment sets forth God’s claim on man’s time and thought…The six days of labor and the rest on the Sabbath are to be maintained as a witness to God’s toil and rest in creation…No one of the ten words is of merely racial significance…The Sabbath was established originally [Genesis 2] in no special connection with the Hebrews, but as an institution for all mankind, in commemoration for all the descendants of Adam.” (Adult Quarterly, Southern Baptist Convention series, August 15, 1937)

"Before the giving of the law from Sinai the obligation of the Sabbath was understood. When some of the people went out [four chapters before Sinai] to get manna, God said unto Moses: 'How long refuse ye to keep My Commandments and My Laws? The Lord hath given you the Sabbath, therefore He hath given you on the sixth day bread enough for two days' [Ex. 16]. Indeed, it may be questioned if the Law given through Moses on tables of stone disclosed any new truth . . . The fourth commandment does not institute a Sabbath, nor does it sanctify a day; it simply writes the Sabbath among the immutable things of God." (Joseph Judson Taylor, The Sabbatic Question, 1914, pp. 22, 24)

"There was never any formal or authoritative change from the Jewish Seventh Day Sabbath to the Christian First Day observance…There are in the New Testament no commands, no prescriptions, no rules, no liturgies applying to the observance of the Lord's Day…There is no organic connection between the Hebrew Sabbath and the Christian Lord's Day…It was only a short while until gentiles predominated in the Christian movement. They brought over the consciousness of various observances in the pagan religions, pre-eminently the worship of the sun--a sort of Sunday consciousness." (William Owen Carver, Sabbath Observance, 1940. pp. 49, 52, 54)